


Land of Exile

by Hagar



Series: See the Silence [3]
Category: Power Rangers Mystic Force, Power Rangers Ninja Storm, Power Rangers Samurai, Power Rangers Wild Force
Genre: Brothers, Character Death, Depression, Family, Gen, Grief, Guilt, M/M, PTSD, Politics, Road Trip, STH Continuity, Scripture References, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 15:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"And after the fire, the thin sound of stillness."</i> - 1 Kings 19:12</p><p>Hunter attempts to outrun his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Secret Life

**Author's Note:**

> Love and gratitude to Sailor Sol and wildforce 71, for discussion, beta'ing and handholding; and also to Tami, who's still putting up with me.

_“And to him your desire, and he may rule you.”_ – Genesis 3:16  
 _“And to you its desire, and you may rule it.”_  – Genesis 4:7

 

* * *

 

The day Hunter stayed behind after the tea ceremony the sky was white with clouds, rather than desert light. It was October; even Southern California got a reprieve from the sunlight, every now and then. The light had turned from deep gold to pink by the time that Hunter and Sensei were the only ones left in the pavilion. The expanse of desert sandstone was blood-red with it.

Hunter had hoped Sensei would ask. He knew he wouldn’t, though. Sensei Omino had stopped asking for words that Hunter had not volunteered on his own a long time ago; Hunter wasn’t in the habit of answering. It’d been a long time since Hunter regretted that.

“You don’t do things without reasons,” Sensei commented. He was still gazing at the sunset.

So was Hunter. “Doesn’t mean they’re always good ones.”

“When you want advice, you solicit it,” Sensei pointed out.

The rejoinder to that was obvious. Hunter remained silent.

“What is it you want, Hunter?”

 _Peace. Certainty._ But he knew where the traps lay. A thousand answers, and all of them wrong. “To make peace with the doubts.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sensei nod. Maybe it wasn’t all the blessing he was going to get, but it probably was all the blessing he could accept. Hunter rose to his feet.

Sensei turned his head to follow Hunter with his gaze. “Safe travels.”

No _I’ll see you when you return._ Hunter was relieved at not having to lie in reply, but his throat still stuck, for a moment. “Thank you,” he said, sincerely. “Goodbye, Sensei. And thank you.”

Sensei’s gaze sharpened. Hunter knew it was a risky thing to say, but it needed to be said – he needed to say it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. It sounded sincere. “Take care, Hunter.”

Hunter bowed once, and left.

 

* * *

 

 The nights were never not cold, up on the desert mountain where the Thunder Academy resided, and he was going somewhere colder. He put on jeans and pulled on the sleeveless with the red bird of prey over a plain black T. It was all black except for the bird; he didn’t have any blue jeans. The sweatshirt he pulled on last was bright red, though. He’d lifted it off Shane, the last time they slept over. It still smelled of him. Shane’s clothes tended to be on the shapeless side of things still, even when they were the right size; on Hunter, the sweatshirt was decidedly oversized. The sleeves weren’t long enough for Hunter to hide his hands in, though; the cuffs reached above his wrists, slightly shorter than they did on Shane.

He was dressed so as to not attract a second look on a city street, and he only packed what would fit into a regular backpack. He didn’t know how long he’d be gone, but he wasn’t heading into the wilderness; or he wasn’t planning on heading into the wilderness. It was all uncertain, for now.

Hunter shouldered his backpack.

 

* * *

 

 He had close to a thousand miles to go. He could cross this distance in nine, ten hours, if he needed to. He didn’t; he had at least fifteen hours. Hunter figured he’d streak for six hours, make camp, sleep for four, and then streak the rest of the way. He’d arrive no more tired than he always was. He hadn’t slept more than six hours out of twenty-four since he was young, and he hadn’t been young in twelve years.

This area was National Park woodlands for at least a hundred miles in any direction, hundreds of miles in some. It was fifty miles to the nearest road, and the nearest town was farther than that. Hunter had grown up in the desert, but he’d since spent more than long enough in the woods. Anywhere his senses could reach it was safe, nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing that could come close enough to be dangerous.

Nothing he recognized.

Then again, if anything would happen – the Karmanian soulfire burned under Hunter’s skin now, too. Hunter wasn’t conscious of it most of the time, but he knew it was there. He could pull on it if he wanted to, and even if he didn’t, Shane would know should anything happen. Shane was never more than a breath away, and anything that would genuinely threaten Hunter would have to answer to him.

Hunter hoped that would never be necessary.

 

* * *

 

 He arrived at Briarwood at ten in the morning. The day was sunny and on the warm side of cool, the sort of weather that Stone Canyon or even Santa Cruz would only have in about a month. The sunlight seemed softer to him, just a little, probably not enough for non-ninja eyes to notice. Or maybe that was just Briarwood.

The town seemed nestled into the land, somehow. Hunter couldn’t pinpoint it, but he had a fairly good idea of what it was regardless. The magic that seeped into the town, wrapped around it and into it like the roots of a tree, was probably also the reason that Briarwood was so easy to settle into.

He could’ve asked for directions. He didn’t. He could’ve asked someone on the street. He didn’t. He could’ve looked it up in the Yellow Pages. He didn’t do that, either. He wandered about downtown, getting the measure of the place. There were people walking on the street who, in any other town, would attract more than a second look. They weren’t many, but they were there; you didn’t need to know to look for them. There were no signs of battle anywhere that Hunter could see.

At the edge of the large grassy patch there was a tree, and across the road from the tree there was a music store. That was the place.

Hunter meandered in.

The store felt cluttered, but it was the sort of clutter that invited one to dig in search of treasures, not the sort of clutter that felt unwelcoming. There were three people in the store that Hunter could see. The man behind the counter was working on a 3D puzzle; the couple in the far aisle were arranging shelves. The girl was blonde, young enough to be a Ranger; the man was one of those who couldn’t walk freely in most human towns.

The man with the puzzle looked up at Hunter and gave him a distracted, if genuine, smile. “Morning. Can I help you?”

Hunter shoved his hands into the sweatshirt’s front pockets; the pockets of his pants were too tight a fit for more than his thumbs. “I’m just browsing.”

“Sure. Holler if you need anything. Or, you know, don’t holler.”

“No hollering,” Hunter agreed.

It wasn’t his kind of music store, really. Cam would love this place; Tori could probably find something here. Dustin maybe, in the right kind of mood. It took Hunter a few moments to notice the quality of the – not ‘silence’, but – and the colours. The power that lay over this town was worked in heavier here. Not intentionally, Hunter thought as he pretended to consider an album’s cover, but like the way water smoothed over pebbles.

The door to the staff room opened and closed, admitting the fourth person into the room. Hunter glanced up. This boy was Ranger-young as well, and wore a green shirt under the purple staff jacket.

Well.

“Good morning,” the boy said as he strode towards Hunter, smiling what he probably thought was a winning smile. The thick accent ticked another checkbox. “I’m Xander, how can I help you?”

“I’m Hunter,” Hunter said, and waited.

“Nice to meet you, Hunter,” Xander said – it didn’t sound automatic, Hunter would give him that – and then his eyes flicked down to the sweatshirt before going back up to Hunter’s face. “Wait – Hunter? Blue Bay Harbor Hunter?”

“Stone Canyon, actually.” The words and the drawl were idle toying, mostly, but everybody had their automatic habits. “But, yes.”

The girl’s voice rang out, sharp now that she wasn’t giggling. “Did somebody say Blue Bay Harbor?”

“Yes, LeeLee, I did,” Xander called back, a little more loudly than was necessary.

“Blue Bay Harbor?” the other person – must be Phineas, if the blonde was LeeLee – called as the two of them came over to join Xander and Hunter. “As in – ”

“Yes,” Hunter said shortly.

“Hi!” called the man from the counter. “Is there any particular reason it takes _three_ of my staff to help one customer?”

“Yes, Toby, he’s a Ranger,” Xander called back.

“Oooh. Let me get my – ”

“He’s one of the ninjas, Toby, you won’t get a morphed photo,” LeeLee said.

“Oh. Well then.”

Xander’s look turned penetrating – more penetrating than anyone who didn’t know he was a Green would expect, Hunter thought. “So, Hunter, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Hunter shrugged.

“I trust there are no Dark Ninjas roaming in town?”

Xander managed to load that statement with all the ridicule it deserved. Hunter snorted in reply.

“All right,” Xander said after a moment. “Toby,” he added as he turned around, “I’m going to be back later, would that be all right?”

“Wait, you asked me before running out the door. I’m shocked.” Toby didn’t sound upset, though.

“Thank you, Toby, you are the best employer ever,” Xander said as he made his way to the door. Hunter followed at the distance of four paces.

“Don’t get eaten by monsters!” Toby called after them.

It was so familiar that, for a moment, it took all of Hunter’s resolve to not run away.

 

* * *

 

 There was a tree directly across from the store. Xander glanced at Hunter as he offered his hand. Hunter kept his expression neutral.

Travel by tree turned out to be more disorienting than teleportation, and differently disorienting than streaking. Hunter could pick up just enough to sense that there were myriad possibilities, but not more than that – not enough to tell what they were, or how to choose between them.

The forest they stepped into on the other end looked like it could, actually, be in Oregon. Or almost: the plants and the smell of the air were right, but the quality of the light was different from Briarwood. Moreover, this place was suffused with magic.

He would’ve continued through those first few breaths, but once in the Forest, Xander let go of Hunter’s hand, took three steps to the side and paused, considering him. “I know you can feel the magic,” he said, “because all the other ninjas could. But you all respond differently, so you’re going to have to tell me when you’re good to go, because it’s going to get deeper inside Rootcore.”

Xander said ‘ninjas’, not ‘team’, Hunter noted. It included Marah, but not Cam. That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear.

A moment later, he nodded.

They only had a short distance to go among the trees before they came into the clearing. The giant tree became visible first; the dragon’s head doorway second.

He knew, and he didn’t. He knew the dragon’s head would be there; he knew that last in his memory, a dragon was Lothor’s emblem; he knew what the scent of popcorn or worse, seafood, felt like. He expected the disgust and the dizzy sense of being wrenched out of time; he didn’t expect the vehemence, the shift into a battle stance he only barely checked in time.

How could Shane –

That blew the fight out of him.

He didn’t bother to straighten his shoulders, or acknowledge the other Ranger in any way, before he walked into the dragon’s mouth.

 

* * *

 

 There was only one other person in the room at the top of the tree. She was Ranger-young, but she didn’t wear a trace of Ranger colour. She was working at a giant cauldron, but she looked up at their entrance, pushing long dirty-blonde hair out of her eyes.

“Hi, Xander, is it noon already? I didn’t expect – oh, who’s our guest?” She smiled at Hunter; her smile was wide and deliberately welcoming, but it didn’t have the edge that Marah’s did. “Hi, I’m Clare.”

“This is Hunter,” Xander said as he stepped down into the main floor and across it, to hug Clare hello. Hunter followed into the main floor, but stopped there.

Clare’s face lit up. “Shane’s team’s Hunter? I was beginning to think we’d never see you! Oh!” She’d moved away from the cauldron and, in her excitement, knocked one of the roots into it. The cauldron hissed, the potion rising alarmingly, and Clare tossed in a handful of herbs and stirred furiously.

“Well, at least you didn’t turn yourself into a sheep this time,” Xander said, too reasonably.

“Oh, _leaf_ it alone, Xander,” she retorted.

“Potion gonna be okay?” Hunter asked.

Xander glanced back at him, expression pained.

“Oh, it’s not a potion, it’s for lunch,” Clare said easily.

 _Shane_ couldn’t cook. This was a whole new level. Hunter considered Xander’s reaction, the likely sequence of events to unfold, and forced his shoulders straighter and his voice lighter. “Want a hand?”

“Oh, no, you’re the guest –”

“That’s a great idea,” Xander said quickly. “Leanbow’s out with Daggeron and Chip, right?”

“And Udonna and Nick are holding Clinic,” Clare agreed.

“And I have to go back to the store, we’re swamped today. I can’t do this to Toby.”

“You mean to LeeLee,” Clare said shrewdly.

Xander ignored it. “Everybody’s going to be extra famished today. Let Hunter help, why not?”

“I’m telling Aunt Udonna it was your idea, when she’s horrified that I let a guest work.”

“And I’ll take the fall.”

 

* * *

 

 Adam had found them that first summer. It didn’t go over too well.

The Parks used to live next door, almost. Adam would stay with Blake and Hunter if their parents were out; he’d taught them to play soccer. Sarah Park would teach them more advanced concepts than anyone else would. The Parks moved away in 1994, unexpectedly and with no explanation. That wasn’t unusual, for ninja families. Blake’s and Hunter’s parents were murdered two months after. That was a little more unusual.

Adam had found them the summer they destroyed Lothor. That didn’t go over well.

Blake would talk to Adam, eventually, but that had taken a while. Dustin had been the one to take in the intel. That also put Dustin as relay to the other older Rangers who’d come by, but they learned better soon enough.

They would’ve left the team after them be, if Tommy Oliver hadn’t gotten his Red to do something that Cam could feel two towns over. Between that and Trent Hernandez the whole team had gotten involved; once was enough. They were enough.

That had gone about half-well. Trent had mostly just needed a light touch; Blake was good for that, and he and Tori could keep that big-mouthed Blue in check. Kira was a problem only by inaction, as much as Hunter had managed to gather. But for all that they could see it coming from eight months before, there was nothing any of them could do when post-Withdrawal had caught up with Conner almost a full year after the Dinos had ended their war.

Nothing _Hunter_ could do, despite that if there was anyone –

The Briarwood team was the Dinos’ to find, and Kira and Trent did. That didn’t last a day. Conner hadn’t been interested and Dustin and Tori had been, and then Leanbow had gone down with two decades’ worth of Withdrawal. The wizards’ were the ninjas’; Shane and Nick clinched it.

Hunter knew to be wary of meeting Nick. He hadn’t expected Vida. That focusing on Colour rather than Element had been an oversight became apparent as soon as Vida stepped into the room, three-colour hair sticking out in all directions, the remains of the makeup of the night before still on her face, and clutching a travel mug.

She was _Air._ Hunter stared, knew he was staring, and only barely managed to look down at the game of jacks he was distracting Clare with. Vida was Air and she was Pink.

This team had a Lightning and he was Yellow. Hunter was still working through the ramifications of that – berating himself for having failed to realize before – when Clare said, in response to something Vida had asked: “He’s Hunter. _Shane’s_ Hunter,” she added after a moment.

“ _Oh._ ”

Hunter looked up.

“You look like Tori when she first laid eyes on Maddie,” Vida said idly in between sips from her coffee. She glanced back at Clare. “Damn, Chip’s gonna go nuts.”

Hunter picked up one of the jacks and deliberately twirled it on a fingertip as if it was a basketball.  “How awake are you?”

“Awake enough to kick your ass.”

He snorted deliberately. “Yeah right.”

“Bring it on, sparky-boy.”

 

* * *

 

 Lunch was underwhelming. The atmosphere lent itself to the expectation of a family sit-down meal. Instead, people wandered through. First Xander, who also picked up a tray for his music store boss; then Maddie, on a break from her classes; then LeeLee and Phineas; Nick and his mother arrived last.

Hunter hadn’t been thinking of getting out until then.

He’d somehow managed to forget about the thick coat of magic permeating everything until he noticed how Udonna was looking at him, and his own non-reaction.

Change in plans. He’d be leaving before nightfall.

“Hi, Clare, Mom, I’m going out to the Forest,” Nick said. “You need anything?”

“Stickleberries,” Clare said promptly.

Udonna frowned. “And see how the moonshade is doing.”

“Got it,” Nick promised. He glanced at Hunter. “You coming?”

 _Didn’t realize you were asking_ overrode _Where are we going?_ Hunter pushed both out of the way, and followed.

“Not gonna ask where we’re going?” Nick asked as they exited the dragon’s mouth door.

Hunter shrugged.

“You look like you needed out, anyway,” Nick continued. If his voice was deliberately unconcerned, he hid it well. “Rootcore’s wrapped up in a dozen layers of wards. Forest magic is wilder.”

“So where _are_ we going?”

“Something I think you’d like to see.”

Hunter gave him a look.

Nick shrugged. “Or we could head back once I got Clare’s stuff. My dad’s bike could use a tune-up. Again. I don’t know what he does to it. I know tour bikes aren’t your thing, but an engine’s still an engine.”

They could. But the bikes would still be there later.

Hunter shrugged.

The place they eventually came to looked, from a distance, like a circle of trees. As they drew close Hunter could see that the surface inside was polished stone, with rays of rough wood leading towards the center. At the center of the circle was a pool, with a – probably magical – flame sprouting from its middle.

“Chip, Daggeron and my dad aren’t due back until the day after tomorrow,” Nick said. “Chip will be sorry he missed you, but I think he’ll be more sorry if you’d missed this.”

Hunter eyed the circle. Some kinds of places had the same feel in any culture. “This is a war memorial.”

“Sort of. It’s not for any specific war, and it’s not really about commemorating anything.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“It’s called The Grieving Place.”

The forest’s sounds fell away into silence.

Nick continued. “There were too many wars, in too few years. Heroism only gets people so far. The People wanted something that would still mean something later. Something that would still connect even if whatever had happened to you was just about when and where you were.”

Obviously it was magical. Hunter hesitated – hand hovering above a tree’s bark – and then crossed the threshold.

Safety, yes, but not the safety of a sanctuary. The sense that there was time enough, that there was room enough, that he could let his mind stretch and unfurl, memories playing like light on the water.

As if he could –

Hunter stepped back, out of the circle. _No, not yet._ He shook his head, temporarily unable to look anywhere but the moss-covered ground. “Does anyone go all the way in?”

“Some. Mom does.”

The light was deeper than it had been before Hunter had stepped into the circle. More time had passed than he’d realized.

“Got any more surprises?”

“Surprises, no.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Fire Heart usually comes to Rootcore around sunset.” Nick hesitated. “He might be able to sense Shane on you. I don’t know. I don’t have soulsight.”

“There’s a surprise.” He was too upset for anything if he’d actually said that to _Nick._

Nick snorted. “Still more human than dragon.”

That _still_ was loaded with emotions Hunter was well familiar with. That, finally, was enough to be able to look up.

The light was definitely on the dark side of gold. “We should be heading back.”

“Yeah. We still got that moonshade to check on.”

 

* * *

 

 The after-dark temperatures were comfortable. Further proof that they weren’t in Oregon, Hunter figured. The three massive tour bikes were in a shed outside, despite that there was more than enough room inside Rootcore. He didn’t know why, and he wasn’t going to ask.

Even if he had someone to ask right there.

Maddie had shown up at some point. He wasn’t sure when. Engine-tuning was a noisy business, and the ambient magic threw off his ninja senses. If she was trying to engage him somehow, she was sneaky and patient about it: she’d been sitting quietly with her textbooks and seemed to barely glance up. She was just _there._

He didn’t know much about Madison Rocca. He knew that she’d made something in Tori settle, and he knew that she was dating her Red. What little he’d seen of her earlier that day told him that she was introverted, but that didn’t tell him much. Blues were introverted as often as Reds were extroverted, and she seemed equally unlike Blake, Tori or Chad. Dino Blue was brash and loud, and Hunter knew nothing about the Turbo Blue that Cam had brought home from campus like yet another stray for Marah. He never did pay enough attention to the Turtle Cove team, either. That team’s Red was more like Dustin – a lion thing, maybe – but Shane took as badly to him as he did to most other Rangers, and Dustin hadn’t tried to change his mind.

Hunter tightened the last screw back on and reached for the cloth. It didn’t matter if Cole’s team had a Black who wasn’t Tommy Oliver, or Adam. It was years in the past and besides, dragon-Nick’s girlfriend of a Blue was sitting just at the edge of his field of vision, and eventually he was going to snap something at her.

Or she would speak first.

“It’ll be out of tune again tomorrow,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” he countered. “Know much about engines?”

She didn’t seem fazed as she closed her textbook, keeping a finger in as a bookmark. “It always is. I think the magic throws it off.”

“The other two bikes are good.”

“Well, Udonna’s not a Fire sorceress, and I think Nick just believes that his bike will stay okay. Magic runs on faith, you know.”

No, he didn’t, actually.

Maddie’s gaze focused, as if it was showing on his face and she could read it. “‘I believe in magic’,” she said. “That’s how it worked for us. What activated our wands, our morphers. It was easy for Chip,” she laughed, fondly, “he’s always believed in magic. The rest of us believed because he did, and it worked for him.”

Dustin had been the first of the Winds to morph, too.

“Except Nick,” she continued. “It didn’t work for Nick, even though we were being attacked and it was going to get him killed. Clare had to show him away.”

He hadn’t known that. “He came back,” he pointed out.

“Yes,” Maddie agreed softly. “He did.”

 _It worked when he did it for us_ went unsaid. Hunter looked down at the cloth and focused on futilely trying to get grease off his hands.

Maddie continued. “He didn’t want us. I think we didn’t know what to do with him either, at first. We screwed up once, actually. Toby chewed us out bad for that, and thank _Goodness_ Udonna never found out. I sat with him a lot.”

Hunter looked up instinctively. He hadn’t seen that coming.

Maddie was still looking at him.

“You’re going to have to forgive yourself eventually.”

He looked away. It was a few moments before he said: “I don’t.”


	2. The Wilderness

_“Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain_  
 _So I hang upon my altar_  
 _And I hoist my axe again._  
 _And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began_  
 _When Jesus was the honeymoon_  
 _And Cain was just the man.”_

– Last Year’s Man, Leonard Cohen

 

* * *

 

It had been dark for a while when Hunter turned back inside. Udonna looked up from her book and her face turned to a frown. That was as far as she got before Nick touched her hand.

“I’ll show you to the barrier,” he told Hunter.

They were definitely not in Oregon. The stars were strange, and they shone steady, unblinking, not like any stars on Earth would’ve. There was no Milky Way running across the sky; instead, there were sheets of light like an aurora running across the distant mountain.

Nick must have followed his gaze, because he said: “That’s raw magic.”

“You get that every night?”

“Yeah. I mean, it moves around some, and the colours change, but – yeah. It’s there every night.”

It was a good place to live, Hunter thought, and then caught himself. He needed to get out of this place, away from this power that he could sense but not touch, seeping in with every breath. It made it easy to believe, in the Forest.

“What do you know about my dad?” Nick asked abruptly.

Nick’s father was a Red, was a powerful wizard, was a Knight, whatever that meant; he was – “He had a bad Withdrawal.”

“Do you know why?” Nick’s voice was tight, pensive.

_No,_ Hunter realized. “He survived off of the Power for a long time,” he said. That much was true; the phrase _Twenty years’ worth of Withdrawal_ had repeated in what accounts he’d heard.

“That’s one way to put it,” Nick said. “He fought in the First War, around the time that I was born. When Aunt Niella – Clare’s Mom – closed the Gate to the Underworld, he stayed behind. Told her to close the Gate behind him. He wanted to destroy the Master.” Pause. “It didn’t work out that way.”

Well, obviously, since Nick’s team had had to do that, twenty years after; and spending that long in the Underworld would account for the world’s worst Withdrawal; Nick was hinting at something else, though, something more that he wouldn’t say out loud yet, and Hunter could not see the shape of what that might be.

“There was a Knight of the Master’s that was... he captured Mom’s Snow Staff, the day my team and I became Rangers. Had a habit of showing up in my head for chats.”

That was the source of the darkness in Nick’s voice, darker than the moonless night. It felt like a physical thing, a taloned monster stretching inside Hunter’s chest, carving its way out. It was long moments before he shook his head, forgetting that Nick would likely not be able to see it. There was nothing he could say to that, nothing he could imagine anyone having to say to that.

He didn’t want to leave, and not because of the magic’s soothing effect; not because of Udonna’s frown over her book, or Maddie’s eyes, or Clare’s laughter. He wanted to stay because of this shadow that could keep his own sins company.

Nick walked him to the barrier, but did not cross it.

 

* * *

 

On the other side of the barrier was the world he knew. The dullness of it – the dullness of everything about it but the bite of cold air – was almost a relief.

Hunter took a deliberately deep inhale of the tasteless, uncomfortable air, and streaked away.

 

* * *

 

He dropped out of streak about an hour out of Briarwood. Turtle Lake was invisible down at the foot of the mountains, blocked out of sight by the town’s lights. It seemed a normal enough town; they all did.

It was too soon to stop for the night. He wasn’t sure how far south he intended to go that night, but an hour out of Briarwood was too soon. He’d never been to Turtle Cove before. It seemed a normal enough town. At least some of the Wild Force Rangers still lived there, he knew, and they were the kind of a team who would welcome another Ranger first, and ask questions later. If at all.

Hunter had the time.

He resumed streaking south.

 

* * *

 

He dropped out of streak first and wondered why second. Something was different. He hadn’t quite passed through this area on his way up north; he’d passed farther east. There was something, here. Something fresh, a power activated recently enough that Hunter could almost taste it, not unlike the way that non-Thunders tasted the air after a storm.

He followed the trail.

The campsite was small. Hunter almost missed it. It was shrouded behind the same power the trace of which Hunter had picked up, folded over and turned in on itself. Someone did not want to be found. He pulled at the shadows and approached cautiously, careful to stay just outside the perimeter.

One figure. Perhaps two, the second better concealed. At least somewhat humanoid, and close to the ground, possibly sitting. That was all Hunter could tell.

Definitely two figures.

“I know you’re there,” said the less-concealed one. He didn’t call out.

Hunter stepped past the threshold. “And your companion?”

If he’d seen the second figure – still tricky to grasp, even on the inside of the concealment charm – before he spoke, he might have spoken differently. The first speaker was human or sufficiently human-looking. The second was decidedly not.

“You can see me,” said the wolf demon. He sounded surprised, and trying to hide it.

“Was I not supposed to?”

Something passed between the two, though they didn’t so much as glance at one another. “Most don’t,” said the human one eventually.

Hunter let the stupidity of that statement pass without comment.

After a long moment, the human asked: “Will you join us?”

Hunter raised an eyebrow.

“We’d all feel more comfortable in each other’s sight,” the demon pointed out reasonably.

There was something that they weren’t saying. But the demon was right, at least until they’d all decide whether or not there was going to be a fight that night. “Two to one,” Hunter pointed out as he sat down, stretching his legs demonstratively. “It’s not like you guys have anything to worry about.”

The human shot Hunter the kind of look he was more used to dishing out than to receiving.

Hunter smiled in reply.

“I’m Merrick. This is Zen Aku.”

_Merrick._ Hunter’s eyes fastened to the pale streaks in Merrick’s hair: not blond, and not vanity.

Silver.

Hunter pushed himself back up. “It was nice meeting you.”

“You’ve heard of Merrick,” Zen Aku said, making Merrick tense and Hunter pause in place. “Should we have heard of you?”

“Hunter Bradley,” Hunter said after a moment. “Ninja Storm, Crimson Thunder.”

It took another moment for Merrick to reply, “Merrick Baliton. Lunar Wolf Guardian, Howling Wolf.” He, too, swallowed back the word _Ranger._

At least now Hunter could be reasonably certain that there would not be a fight that night. At least, not one that he could see coming.

“Zen Aku,” said the demon. “The rest, I am not so sure, anymore.”

“How did you know we were here?” Merrick asked.

Hunter shrugged. “Trace of power in the forest.” Might have happened if they were hunting, or if Zen Aku had been sloppy with the charm. “How did you know I was there?”

Merrick hesitated, then said: “The wind told me.”

Hunter didn’t realize he sat down until there was something solid beneath him. _The wind?_ The trace of the Grid on Merrick was faint but there, once Hunter searched for it; the Power had had a long time to settle into Merrick’s body. There was also a trace of something else. It wasn’t any ninja element Hunter could recognize, but it was there.

Vaguely familiar, impossible to recognize, and _there._

He forced his voice to be steady, on the suspicious side of indifferent. “You’re no ninja.”

Merrick shrugged.

“Perhaps we should’ve asked the Pai Zhua about that as well,” Zen Aku mused.

Pai Zhua. It’d been a while since Hunter had heard that name. _Beast Masters._ Hunter considered the demon – Org, that was the name of that class of demon. “So how does a _wolf_ spirit become an Org?”

“That is a very good question,” the demon in question replied.

One that the Beast Masters had been unable to answer, Hunter surmised. “Pai Zhua. They make the rest of us look recent.”

“You ninjas certainly are,” Merrick said. “Legend has it, the Wild Zords are descended from the Beast Spirits. Animus said so, himself. Pai Zhua seem to have the same legend.”

“I believe Animus had failed to mention that he created the Wild Zords,” Zen Aku remarked.

“That’s what the Pai Zhua say.”

“The Spirits and the Zords are clearly related. And Animus is certainly capable.”

“Capable of embodying spirits?” Zen Aku and Merrick both looked at him. Hunter had spoken without thought, but he wasn’t about to let them find that out. He shrugged deliberately. “That takes quite a bit of power, is all.”

“Animus is the God of the Wild Zords,” Merrick said.

_And yours,_ Hunter completed silently. And – if he put the pieces of dialogue together – one of the subjects that Merrick and Zen Aku had spoken to the Pai Zhua about. Was it Animus who spoke over the wind? Animus who’d left that signature on Merrick?

“Perhaps,” Zen Aku mused, “it is not by chance that we have come across each other tonight. What do you know about that?”

He knew what the brush of soulfire more intense than one’s own felt like. He’d witnessed how difficult it was to control. He knew how to tell when that light went on in another’s eyes. He knew that there was a whole relationship, a whole dimension of Shane’s life, that not he, nor Tori or Dustin, nor Cam, would ever be able to share in, not really.

Shane had tried to make it safe. It had almost destroyed Tori. Hunter was careful to not wonder if anyone would stop it, if it would almost destroy him.

“I didn’t know Gods are real,” he said instead.

“What is a God?” Merrick asked. It sounded as if he’d had to explain that before.

“You’re the one who actually knows one.”

“Animus is my friend,” Merrick said simply.

Hunter looked away.

“I know someone,” he said. Maybe. He wasn’t sure. “We don’t know what he’d be able to do in the future, but he might be that strong. He’s definitely that _kind_ of strong. And I know that –” _loving him_ “– is dangerous.”

“Animarian and Org legends say that at the dawn of time, Man and Beast were at war,” Zen Aku said.

“Don’t let Taylor or Alyssa hear you use that language,” Merrick muttered.

“The Orgs say that humankind and the animals united in face of the Orgs’ might,” Zen Aku continued. “The story Pai Zhua tell is different. They say that some Beast Spirits did not want to make war. They say that those spirits found human partners who could stand up with them. Those early masters drove back the hostile Beast Spirits, and helped shape humanity into a more cooperative culture. This all had happened longer before Animaria, than Animaria was before the present age.”

More than six thousand years ago, Hunter translated.

“Those are some seriously old legends,” Merrick said. “And they have their own agenda.”

“Forgive my companion,” Zen Aku said. It sounded like a _You’re an idiot_ directed at Merrick. “The Pai Zhua legend insinuated that Animus had once been one of their Masters.”

“Does the Star Sister legend make any sense to you?” Merrick demanded.

Of course.

Both wolves stared at him.

He didn’t want to talk about it.

“That would do it,” he eventually said.

They were still looking at him.

“The Pai Zhua say that the sister was the Wild Zord’s mother,” Merrick said after a while. “That Animus and she created the Wild Zords together.”

It seemed as if he might say more, but Hunter decided it was high time for a topic change. “So how does all that relate to how a wolf spirit can be an Org?”

“I was cursed,” Zen Aku said slowly. “We thought that perhaps I still am.”

Hunter waited.

Eventually, Zen Aku concluded with a sigh: “It’s been a very long time.”

“Why not ask your god?” Hunter asked. “He would know.”

“Animus... left,” Merrick said eventually. “Mostly.”

Hunter waited.

“Sometimes the wind carries his voice.”

It was difficult to think. It was a few moments before Hunter thought to ask – but no, Zen Aku had said they didn’t – but “ _Animus_ told you I was here?”

“Probably wanted to make sure we wouldn’t attack a fellow Ranger by accident,” Merrick said dryly.

“You know about the Star Sister,” Zen Aku said. “Your friend...?”

Hunter looked away.

The sounds of movement came a few moments later. Someone shifting against the forest floor, and then the click of wood against metal and the sloshing of liquid.

There was a pot on the campfire, Hunter remembered.

Merrick stepped into Hunter’s field of vision, crouched before him and offered a bowl of the stew. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The princess always did say I have terrible manners.”

Hunter accepted the bowl.

Merrick returned to his place on the other side of the fire.

Reluctantly, Hunter turned. He kept his attention on the bowl, though, rather than look at the two wolves.

He’d been hungry.

Almost half a bowl later, he said: “There is a species called Karmanians. They’re naturally noncorporeal, live in deep space. They have a really complicated life cycle. They need to bond with a corporeal being when they come of age, or they die. And take a lot of property with them.”

“Siblings from the stars,” Zen Aku said.

“Yeah.”

“Who can embody spirits as powerful as those of the Wild Zords, and read the history of one’s soul.”

“Souls are their thing.”

“Karmanians, or their bonded?” Merrick asked.

_They’re all Karmanian._ Hunter flinched back from the thought. “Both.”

“The power takes time to grow and develop,” Zen Aku said. “That’s what you said, earlier.”

“Zen Aku,” Merrick said.

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but this was better.

Merrick fed a twig to the fire; a useless gesture, meant just to give him something to do as he asked: “What happened? Your friend,” he added when he looked up and saw Hunter staring at him. “You said it was dangerous.”

It took him a few minutes to settle for: “Power always is.”

 

* * *

 

The sky above Santa Cruz was blue and clear. The air was moist, but not as if it just rained or would shortly. It always smelled of water, here. It made things trickier should Hunter need to fall back to his element. The desert was better for a Thunder. But as Blake had noted, he shouldn’t need to fight this way, not in this life.

It still made Hunter uncomfortable. But this was Tori’s city, and Tori was part of Blake’s life.

Tori should be in class at this hour. Blake may or may not be home; Hunter hadn’t called in advance. Blake would be home eventually and if not, Hunter was just passing through.

Blake was indeed not home. The door looked ordinary but it had Cam’s security, and it let Hunter in.

The blinds were thrown open, letting in the sunlight. The air was warmer inside than outside; Blake and the Winds had an expansive definition of _cold._ The low Ikea couch had a dark blue TV blanket thrown over it, hiding the white pillows. Marah’s atrocious neon-bright orange poodle was still in the living room’s corner. There were three beanbags, now, each in a different shade of blue: navy, turquoise, and ordinary Ranger blue. Blake and Tori had acquired a kitchen table since their last apartment. This one was wood like everything else, the chairs next to it wood and blue.

Hunter dropped his bag in the hallway and settled on the navy blue beanbag.

The security chimed half an hour later. By the time Blake made it to the apartment’s door with the groceries Hunter already had it open.

“I’m surprised security still recognizes you.”

“It’s good seeing you, too.”

“I was beginning to think you forgot where I live.”

“It would help if you didn’t move all the time.”

“We needed the extra room. And once a year isn’t ‘all the time’.”

“Houseguest still regular?”

“Ethan’s still having issues finding a roommate,” Blake acknowledged. “And we’re still less scary than Cam.”

Cam chose CalTech to terrorize.

They were organizing the groceries as they spoke. Mostly fresh produce, Hunter noted, stuff that would need to be cooked with before it went bad. There’d been more cans, the last time Hunter had been in Tori’s and Blake’s kitchen, the previous school year.

“Should I get you cooking books for your next birthday?”

“I’m not sure I trust your taste, bro. But we could use a nice new food processor.”

That was more Cam’s territory. “How about a nice set of knives.”

“Knives are always good,” Blake agreed. He put away the last of the empty bags. “So, who died?”

Thankfully Blake was looking away when he said that. “Can’t I visit my baby brother?” Hunter asked lightly.

“You can, but you don’t,” Blake said. He closed the fridge’s door, cracked open both cans of root beer and handed one to Hunter.

Hunter took it. “I could say the same thing.”

“That’s because you never seemed to have time.”

_Excuse me for only graduating last year._ “You moved in with your girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry,” Blake said after a long moment.

Hunter shrugged, took a sip from the can and looked away. “She’s good for you. She doesn’t have to like me.”

Blake shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad you’re here, I really am. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

_You’re right. I never come._ He wasn’t even sure it was because of Blake-and-Tori. They hadn’t lived together that first year, when Tori had tried dorm life. Hunter had heard about it, more than he remembered it; the latter half of 2003 and early 2004 were mostly a blank. He knew he wasn’t the only one; Marah had cut him off and later pulled him aside, when he’d tried asking Cam.

It didn’t have to be that bad. The Dinos fared better, even including Conner’s breakdown of two months before, when that high school sweetheart of his had broken up with him. The wizards seemed to be doing even better. It’d been – it still was – this bad for their team, and they didn’t need to speak about why it was so for Hunter to know.

What had happened, during that first year? Blake said he’d forgiven Hunter for _Then,_ and Hunter had eventually given up and accepted it. That Blake would and consistently did apologize for things like their exchange of a few minutes before made that acceptance feel not entirely crazy. But what had happened to them after?

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What fo-” Blake closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. On the exhale, he said: “We need to stop apologizing to one another all the time, bro.”

“I don’t know how.”

He didn’t know how to unfuck any of this. The three feet of distance between them seemed unbridgeable. When they were younger they would jostle – _I’m still here, we’re both still whole_ – but that option was long gone, and their words turned too sharp, too fast. Hunter had never been any good for this. And if Blake didn’t know how, either –

Hunter put the can away quickly and turned his head, eyes screwed shut.

“Fuck,” Blake said a second later and Hunter forced himself to turn back, forced his eyes open despite the burning, despite that his little bro would see –

– but Blake was right next to him.

“Fuck this shit,” his little brother said, and reached up to hug him.

 

* * *

 

They ended up cooking. Cooking didn’t require speaking. It seemed they were still enough like their old selves to move around each other in the kitchen without saying a word. It wasn’t like it used to be, and not just because Hunter had no idea how Blake could have Hunter working with a knife and a flame and not flinch back from him. They used to use their powers to cook, to heat water and pulverize ingredients, but Blake used the stove, now, and instruments that Hunter had never had reason to learn to use.

They were making vegetable pies, apparently. It involved a lot of cheese, cream and eggs, more than was commonly used, Hunter thought. He wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with how much Blake and Tori did or didn’t train. Blake had moved out of Clan politics over two years before; Tori had recently declared an intention to have a civilian career, Hunter knew from Shane. But they had all opened themselves too much to the Grid in that final battle, morphing despite their morphers being drained and useless; and even before that, Hunter privately thought, the Grid had already altered all of their elemental affinities. Ninja powers took time to grow, rarely fully maturing before one’s thirties, and they’d all had fully mature powers when still in their teens. He knew his own body was still catching up; Shane had a third power interfering, and was an example of nothing.

In that regard. Hunter wasn’t going to think about the night before on the rare occasion of it being just Blake and him, acting as if they could find their rhythm, again.

This had happened, before. They never found out how to talk to one another again, before. Hunter didn’t think they would this time, not really. They just didn’t know how to do it, anymore, and that had nothing to do with how much either of them wanted to.

It was the sort of thing Shane would scoff at him for. He couldn’t shut away the thought, now. This was the sort of thing that would upset Shane. It was, maybe, why that was the safest part of Hunter’s life; because Shane always found ways to cut through Hunter’s bullshit like it was nothing.

He didn’t want for Blake to pay the price it took to be that person. He really was grateful that Blake had Tori, who was going to make a sane, safe life for herself – and for Blake, while he was with her, the kind of life the wish for which was implicit in Blake’s moto career.

Hunter dropped the sliced leek in the pan with the rest of the vegetables.

He was still waiting to find out what life he would belong in.

 

* * *

 

There was a pie cooling on the countertop, one in the oven and one still waiting its turn when his cell phone started humming. Hunter pulled it out of its pocket. The number that flashed on the screen was part of a Thunder Academy batch.

No. Not now. It was going to shatter –

Or maybe it was better that Blake was there.

“Bro?” Blake asked.

Hunter forced himself to flip open the phone and put it next to his ear. “This is Hunter.”

“This is Keith Ito,” said the voice on the other end.

It was Sensei Ito’s voice. This really was it.

“Yeah.”

“Hunter – I would feel better if you took a seat.”

He wasn’t sitting and he wasn’t going to sit, but he put his other hand against the kitchen table – balled into a fist – and leaned on it. He looked down, not wanting to see Blake’s face. Blake had figured out that something was wrong before Hunter even picked up. “I’m listening.”

“It is my sad duty to inform you that our Clan Chief, Hideaki Omino, has passed away.”

Hunter closed his eyes.

“His heart failed,” Keith continued. “It was – no quicker than those things usually are, but not slower.”

Heart attack wasn’t an uncommon way for Thunder ninjas to die. They all knew what it looked like.

“Hunter?”

“I hear you.”

“Hunter – he named you.”

“Hunter?” But it was Blake’s voice, Blake’s hand on his shoulder as he took the phone out of Hunter’s hand. “This is Blake Bradley.”

Hunter made himself look, watch as Blake’s expression changed – first when he recognized the senior teacher’s voice, then as Keith delivered the news.

“I’ll tell him,” Blake eventually said, and “I’m coming too, Sensei, of course,” and “Léan?”

Hunter went to get some water as Blake made arrangements. He picked the plastic glasses off the rack.

When he turned around again, Blake had put the phone on the table. “I told them we’ll arrive this afternoon,” he said. “I need to make sure we don’t get the kitchen burned and to call Tori, and then I’m getting a teleport out of Cam. Sensei Ito says you left the day before yesterday, I have no idea how much you’ve been streaking, you can’t arrive exhausted, you’re – ” Blake’s voice broke. “You knew.”

“Not that he’d name _me._ ”

“But you knew. That’s why you – Cam told you it was coming and you –”

“He didn’t know precisely when, could be a week from now –”

“You were running away _again._ ”

“I was hoping if I wasn’t there –”

“Then what, Hunter? Because from where I’m looking at it you didn’t prepare a Plan B.”

He wasn’t going to think about that. He wasn’t. “I wasn’t running away,” he said instead. Quickly, before Blake could say he didn’t believe him, he continued: “Well, I wasn’t, okay? One way or the other I was going back, I just – fucking Elements, Blake. That’s it. That’s  –” He bowed his head, breathing heavily too, eyes screwed shut again.

When Blake spoke again it seemed a small eternity after, and as if his voice was coming from too far away. “Your one last getaway is over,” he acknowledged. “Clan Chief.”


	3. Still Your Voice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra thanks to Pameluke and duckwhatduck for their help with the translation of the chapter's motto.

_“Refrain thy voice from crying, stop thine eyes from tears_  
_For you will be rewarded, from peril they will return;_  
_To thy end there still is hope, to their borders they’ll be returned;_  
_For I have heard Ephraim struggling like a youth as yet untaught:_  
_Turn me back and I’ll return, for you are the Lord my God.”_

– Jeremiah 31:16-18

* * *

 

Blake put the uncooked pie in the fridge and considered the oven timer before he made the first phone call. It was to Tori; Hunter only caught snatches of the conversation as Blake had gone into the bedroom, intercut with the sounds of drawers opening and closing.

He could call Cam. He should call Shane. Maybe he should call Sarah Park –

The oven timer rang. Hunter got up and took the pie out of the oven. When he turned around – pie still in hand – Blake was there, carrying two Academy bags, one with the Thunder and one with the Wind crest.

“Tori’ll arrive with Shane and probably Dustin, they’ll check in with Jo about protocol,” Blake said. “Talked to Cam yet?” He didn’t wait for Hunter to answer, though. He just hit something on his phone and put it to his ear. “Tell me why I’m calling.”

The pan’s heat radiated through the oven-mittens. Hunter put it on the board to cool off.

Blake stepped closer, phone in hand but pointed down. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

Later, he wouldn’t remember the rest of that afternoon.

 

* * *

 

The funeral temple was at the north end of Academy grounds, a brisk walk – or a short streak – away from the next-nearest building. The funeral pyre would be held there, and before it the wake. First the guests must arrive. A Clan Chief’s funeral was a formal affair. And until the pyre, night vigils had to be held. Traditionally it was the oldest son’s place. Sensei Omino had had one daughter of the body, and she was on a plane above the Atlantic. Hunter had been named in succession, and that was as good as a formal adoption.

Hunter sat by the body.

The spirits were real, he knew all too well. But the body was dead, the soul’s anchor severed. He had no idea what a spirit may want with it, or what it was about empty bodies that attracted the vilest of spirits. He had no illusions about this. Perhaps they’d get lucky; and perhaps, at some point over the next few nights, he’d be required to fight. And if he’d need to fight, he would most likely need to morph.

He was only a first-level Master. He’d need to learn fast, to catch up with all that a Clan Chief needed to know. His rare affinity shouldn’t continue to hinder him at this point, he’d been told, but Hunter had little faith in that. Should it come to that kind of a night, he’d morph.

They'd been warned about cold morphs by the Rangers Before. Morphing Power took time to build up. But if you had morphed before your body would remember what Power level it had achieved and even a single brief morph could be enough to kick up your metabolism all the way. A cold morph could screw someone up. It had happened before.

Rangers had also morphed without functional morphers before, but never so many. Never a whole team. Cam wasn't sure if that would be protective or screw them up worse on the case of a cold morph.

Hunter figured it would be the latter. No reason for any of their lucks to change now.

 

* * *

 

He streaked to the edge of the main part of the Academy, but walked from there. The campus was already awake. Shortly after sunrise, the students and some of the staff were making their way to breakfast after the morning‘s first classes.

Hunter received and replied to brief bows. No one spoke to him on the way to the staff building.

He had no interest in breakfast, and he'd remain in his old rooms until after the funeral.

He showered, put on fresh robes and headed out.

He timed it right: the Wind Academy delegation showed up at the Thunder Academy’s gate one hour after sunrise.

The presence of the Wind Clan Chief by himself would have been sufficient, if vaguely insulting. The presence of all three senior teachers would have been satisfying respectful. Shane, Tori and Dustin did not arrive alone, though. Cam was also there.

Cam had no official position in the Wind Clan; he wasn't even a Wind. The clans were only ignoring his Non-Elemental status out of respect for his part in the Lothor War – and because no one was stupid enough to get on Shane’s bad side. Cam was indeed in Samurai garb as formal as everyone else's robes, both swords strapped at his waist.

What alliance the Way of the Wind had made with House Saito had not extended to the Way of the Thunder. It would after this. This, Hunter knew, would develop interestingly once the delegation from the First Academy would arrive.

Sarah Park, who was responsible for the ceremony, didn’t blink.

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t wrong about the Japanese delegation’s reaction. He hadn’t expected the grade and number of the delegation’s members. He should’ve. The Lothor prophecy – the _Ranger_ prophecy – predated the North American Clans; was possibly the reason that the North American Clans had been founded at all. Prophecies, in the plural: the Thunder Clan had its own War Prophecy. This was not respect for Sensei Omino; this was respect for a hero of the prophecy.

If only they knew.

 

* * *

 

In retrospect, he shouldn’t have been surprised that Ryan Mitchell had shown up with his Red, his demon stepfather and weak arguments about neighbourly behavior.

 

* * *

 

The first time Hunter met Leanbow, the man was dressed in blood-red armor, a white-clad Udonna on his arm, offering condolences on behalf of the Order of the Knights and the People of the Forest.

This wasn’t a personal occasion, it was a formal one. Hunter would’ve felt better – would have been less irritated, at least – if all those people _remembered_ that.

 

* * *

 

He should’ve spent his days away on his own. Perhaps had he done that, he would have been better prepared to suffer through this kind of socializing.

That he and everyone else were roles, here, and not persons, only just made this tolerable at all.

 

* * *

 

The sense of the wards flickering and then re-sealing as the front doors of the shrine opened had Hunter rise to his feet. The wards weren’t triggered further as whoever that was made their way across, indicating that this was another Thunder. Still, Hunter had his hand on his staff when the final door opened.

Léan was still wearing what clothes she must have flown in.

They must have both stepped forward, because the next moment they were at half-distance between the dead body and the door, hugging fiercely. Léan smelled faintly of sweat and musk like one did after thirty hours at airports and airplanes, and underneath that the scent of moss, water and herb that must have stuck to her all the way from Ireland. It was the way Maeve had always smelled, the scent of a silver lining in an otherwise unbroken blue sky.

The deep, shuddering exhale caught him off guard. Léan tightened her hold in response. It was another moment before he managed to settle.

They let go.

“You look like hell.”

“Because you look like a princess.”

He stepped sideways, tacitly giving her access to the body.

She shook her head. “Go. I’ll take tonight.”

“Léan –”

“Mom gave me something to sleep on the plane. Also Blake says you’ve been awake for two days straight.” She tipped her chin up.

Hunter’s lips pressed.

It was her father.

It was so hard to make himself move.

When he turned at the door, Léan had already knelt by the body.

 

* * *

 

He walked back to camp. The night was moonless. Hunter didn’t look up at the stars much, or down at the ground. His senses ran through the earth, the air and the vibrations that ran through them and reflected back.

He walked the entire way. Everyone was long asleep by the end of his march.

 

* * *

 

Hunter’s room was at the tallest floor of the staff building. The hallway ran around the central space. A permanent draft ran through the building. A gap had been left in the roof up top, running the circumference and pulling in the air from below. Rainfall wasn’t much of a concern, and the breeze was desirable for most of the year. Perhaps he could see stars if he looked up at the right angle, but the gap was too narrow for most anything but light and air to get through.

A hawk wasn’t very big, particularly if he pulled his wings in for a flare. Still, it was a fairly impressive bit of flying. The flash of light and power as Shane transformed back into human form was muted, just as controlled as the landing had been.

Out here, in the hallway, where theoretically they could be seen, despite how little noise Shane had made. Out here, in the hallway, where theoretically Hunter could say no.

He didn’t want to.

They were in each other’s space two feet past the threshold, legs tangled even standing up, hands pulling at leather and cotton. Skin. Skin on skin. Hunter wanted it, needed it like air, Shane’s skin under his fingers and Shane’s hands on his shoulders, on his waist. Maybe he was drowning and maybe he’d been drowning before but it didn’t matter, not when he hadn’t had this for so long.

This warmth was all body and breath, skin on skin and the thrum of ribs and muscle under palm, the slide of air in and out of lungs.

He wasn’t sure how he ended up with his arms around Shane. Perhaps because he wanted to hold; perhaps because it made it easier to rest his head, given the slight height difference; perhaps because this way they could pretend that Shane wasn’t holding him up.

 

* * *

 

It was still dark when they woke up, but it wouldn’t be for long. Shane disentangled and rolled out from under the covers, letting cold air in.

He had to be freezing like that.

Hunter’s fingers closed around Shane’s wrist, nothing tentative about the grip.

Shane stopped.

It was a few more seconds before Hunter woke up the rest of the way.

This didn’t happen as often nowadays, though it was no less complete for it. Whatever Hunter decided now would happen. It would be idiocy to not let Shane go, to deliberately shatter how carefully everyone pretended that Shane and he were not what they were. He could. No one could stop him. If this was what he wanted –

That was why he let go and left his hand not on Shane’s thigh but next to it. Because what judgment Shane could make he wouldn’t, not until Hunter gave permission, not when Hunter wanted this so much.

That was why Hunter let go and let Shane get up and get dressed, open a window and leave. Because nothing good ever came out of it when Hunter wanted something this badly.

He got up and prepared for the day of the wake.

 

* * *

 

Whether Sensei and Maeve were married depended on who you asked, and under whose law. They were married so far as the State of California was concerned. Léan could have inherited either of her parents under their native laws; she would have been the obvious Clan Chief if she’d been a son, if she couldn’t inherit the matrilineal line. Léan, ninja law had room for.

Hunter made room for Maeve at his side at breakfast without a word. Sarah and Keith took that for granted, which he expected but was grateful for nevertheless.

Maeve did not say a word, either, but she found Hunter’s hand under the table. That was Maeve. She’d aged since he’d last seen her: her skin was still solid and smooth but her hair was grayer, and short now.

Maeve had been the one to take Blake and he to the track and put them on their first bikes. She was the one who had the clout to ignore what schedule Sensei had drawn, and demand that on their behalf.

This was Maeve.

 

* * *

 

Sarah came in while tea was being made.

Hunter looked at her questioningly. This was not according to ceremony, which Sarah knew better than most.

She said, “There are samurai at the gate.”

 

* * *

 

Hunter kept Sarah; she could apologize more elegantly than Keith but she also knew the histories better and would, perhaps, be more open, her son being who and what he was and her being aware of it. He also summoned Cam, no more than a thought necessary. Shane would be watching, he knew, but Shane could not be formally present. Hunter sent everyone else away, keeping only the minimal number of senior students that eased the twitch next to Keith’s eye. He did not need a personal guard, and he was not going to stand on useless ceremony – not when he and everyone else knew that this had to be chief among the reasons he’d been chosen for succession.

The samurai seemed to be in his forties, solid but no longer young. His skin had the texture expected of one who travelled much and expected shelter little. _Monk,_ Hunter thought as he considered the samurai’s robes, and received an echo of agreement from Cam; who, for his part, had gone so far as to leave his amulet hanging over his robes and on display.

A girl trailed a step behind the monk and a step to his left. Her robes were plain and there were no swords at her waist. She was blond, obviously not related by blood to the monk. She seemed to be in her mid-teens and tiny at that. She had a wary quality to her that reinforced the suggestion of the monk’s leathery skin.

The monk stopped at a respectful distance and bowed deeply. The girl bowed no deeper. “Greetings, Lord. I am Ten’ichi of the Order of the Tengen Gate; I come in peace.”

Brief burst of information from Cam: the Order of the Tengen Gate was legit. Their Gate was not merely a physical one; Ten’ichi could be here for the Rangers – probably was. There was more information that Cam was holding back or unsure of himself, and it summed up to _history._

Between that and Ten’ichi was going out of his way to be polite and inoffensive, Hunter decided to play nicer than he’d intended. “I am Sensei Hunter Bradley of the Thunder Academy,” he said. He would not be _Clan Chief_ until Chief Omino’s body was buried; _Lord_ was a Samurai title, not a Ninja one. “You are unexpected here, Monk Ten’ichi.”

“I apologize for what inconvenience our arrival has caused you and yours. We merely request to convey our condolences, on behalf of the Order of the Tengen Gate, for the recent loss your clan has suffered.”

_We,_ suddenly; but that could also be because the girl was of the Order – _Unlikely,_ said Cam’s invisible headshake in the back of Hunter’s head. _Unlikely, but not impossible; they take women where the need arise._

Hunter inclined his head slightly to the side.

Cam stepped forward. “Do you know who I am?” he demanded.

Cam _could_ be proper when he wanted to. Either he didn’t want to, or there was a Samurai power-play here that Hunter did not understand – and didn’t appreciate, but Cam rarely bothered explaining himself.

“Yes, Lord Saito.” Ten’ichi – and his girl – bowed again, deeper this time. “I know who you are.”

“The Order of the Tengen Gate answers to House Shiba.”

“That it does, Lord Saito.”

“House Shiba and House Saito have not had relations in 700 years.”

_700 years._ That was when their morphers had been forged, according to the scrolls. Cam named that number knowing Hunter would recognize it.

“No, Lord Saito, and I cannot speak on the Order’s behalf on this matter, not at this time.”

Ten’ichi was more than a monk. The thought echoed twice over, coming from both Cam and Shane, wherever he was in the sky above them and relayed through Cam. Hunter deduced this; Cam picked on a trace of something from Ten’ichi; and Shane was far more interested in the girl.

Hunter ignored Cam and Shane arguing and bowed ever-so-slightly at Ten’ichi instead. “On behalf of the Thunder Academy, I thank you. You and your companion have arrived in time.”

Ten’ichi bowed again.

Not a word about the girl.

Hunter would be busy enough helping Sarah to keep the First Academy delegation from popping a vein.

 

* * *

 

When the delegates had left at the end of the wake, Maeve looked at Keith. Keith left without looking at Hunter. Blake did look, but Léan – who’d been standing next to him – took his hand and led him away.

Maeve put her right hand to the side of his cheek and turned his face to her. He had to tip his chin down; he must have grown an inch or two since he’d last seen her, because she was half a foot shorter than him, now. These years later, and it was still disconcerting that she was shorter than him at all.

There was a pale aura around Maeve’s pupils, too, but this was an altogether different power.

Eventually, she said: “You’ll do.”

She was decisive but anyway, he asked: “Will I?”

“Life and Death both find a way, Hunter.”

It was the way she always spoke his name, as if it was a word in her tongue.

He bowed his head.

She put her other hand against his face as well, pulled him down the rest of the way, and placed a kiss on his forehead.

 

* * *

 

One day Léan and Shane would not glare daggers at one another, or would at least not need to pretend so hard.

It was not yet that day.

 

* * *

 

Léan and he had taken one night each. The third and last, they took together. Blake had shifted in place, but Keith had given him a stern look. Three was too many. Hunter and Léan could only get away with sharing the shift because of the multiple hierarchies and inheritances involved.

It was quiet.

“Did you...?” Hunter asked.

Léan shook her head. “I’m a ninja; but my mother has only one daughter.”

_Your father only had one child._ He had to bite his lip from saying it. She’d always reacted in anger to that, and he himself was adopted by ninja law, now. She might hit him if he said that.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

He replied honestly: “No.”

She shrugged. “You weren’t before, either.”

“That did not exactly go well,” he pointed out. Léan had only been there for the tail end of it, but she – unlike most of the Academy, unlike Keith – knew.

“And I had been a Terror of the Pit,” said a new voice.

Hunter and Léan both jumped to their feet, staffs in hand.

The sphinx spirit raised its hand, palm facing towards them. “Please, I mean you no harm.”

“Who are you?” Hunter demanded.

“My name is Itasis,” the sphinx said. “As I already told you, I was one of the Ten Terrors of the Pit.”

The Pit. Terrors. That sounded familiar. “You fought the Mystic Force,” he accused.

“I have,” she agreed, “but courage, honour and faith won out. My fellow Terror Matombo and I have joined with the wizards, even before the Master was destroyed. We alone survived of the Ten Terrors.”

“What are you doing here?” Hunter demanded.

“This is not your land,” Léan added.

“I am guarding against what evil spirits wish to harm your father, while the rites have not been completed and his spirit is still vulnerable. The other spirits fear me. He will be safe.” Itasis bowed. “I will see to it.”

She stepped back and disappeared into the shadows.

Hunter and Léan exchanged glances.

“Friend of yours?” Léan asked as she returned his staff to its place.

“Friend of a friend.”

She studied him for a moment before she said: “Seems you have a lot of those.”

He shrugged, and sat down.

 

* * *

 

No evil spirits came that night, either.

 

* * *

 

When the light of the new day reached the northern chamber, Hunter and Léan pushed open the doors leading to the southern entrance, and waited.

 

* * *

 

A week before, Cam had called him. Five days before, Hunter had fled. Three days before, the moment he’d fled from had found him. This, now...

He knew this ritual. He knew his place in it, which lines to utter and which bows to give, when and to whom. He could have performed this without a hitch three days before, too, for all that – he knew now – he would have remembered nothing of it.

Would he forget this? He wondered. He knew just enough to know that he couldn’t tell.

The wake had been the longer ritual. Sarah was supposed to have presided over it, but the First Academy delegate had offered and Hunter accepted. It was an unexpected honour.

It wasn’t for Sensei, but Hunter had stopped expecting that, at some point over the past three days.

The Wind Academy was here for Senseis Omino and Watanabe both. Maeve was here for her late husband. Ten’ichi and his urchin – whoever _she_ was – were here for Cam, and Cam’s mother. Everyone else...

The wake had been the longer and more complicated ritual. Hunter could better afford to study the congregation, now. Still, none of this felt real. The body of ninjas, perhaps, but not the light on his face or the section of guests.

The body on top of its pyre...

That, Hunter realized, was beginning to feel real.

Why, in the name of Elements and Void both, was it the samurai girl who handed him the torch?

Her shoulders tensed. “Sensei Park said I should.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“My father was killed seven years ago,” she said. “I wasn’t there. Nothing... I’m so sorry, Sensei. Please accept my condolences.”

For a moment, there, she’d been a girl, she’d been an orphan. And then that was hastily shoved under and she straightened her back, speaking those last words not like a nameless urchin in the care of a wandering monk.

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Lauren.”

She could not possibly be older than seventeen at the most, and was most likely younger. She’d been younger than he’d been when orphaned, perhaps as young as Blake had been.

He put his left palm against her upper arm – open, solid but without force – nodded, and took the torch.

She bowed and stepped back.

He turned towards the pyre.

_No,_ he thought, _no._ It wouldn’t be real until he lit that pyre. It wouldn’t be real –

He forced himself to step forward.

It _was_ real. This was him, now, under the weight of all of these eyes, ninja and druid and samurai and wizard and demon.

This was him.

He touched the torch to the dry wood.


End file.
